Mystic Chords of Memory
by chatnoir
Summary: SV, Vaughn POV, prePhase One, postThe Getaway That ringing phone in the background just might lead you to the truth, but when truths are false, what do you fall back on? DISCONTINUED.
1. pt 1

**Title**: Mystic Chords of Memory (1/?)

**Author**: chatnoir

**Disclaimer**: Not mine, never has been, never will be. ::jumps into JJ suit and mask and glasses:: Now I own them. ::slips out of suit and mask:: Now I don't. However, Very Bad Robot owns them too. ::puts on Robot costume:: I own them. ::takes it off:: Now I don't; wow, it's hot in there.

**Distribution**: SD-1, , anywhere else: ask me first.

**Rating**: G

**Summary**: When truths are proven false what do you fall back on?

**Genre**: Angst. I figure... there are gonna be a lot of fluff fics today. So why not write an angst fic? ;)

**Timeline**: Phase One never happens. This is set a couple of months (8-10 months) after the Getaway. But let's pretend that Vaughn broke up with Alice sometime in the Getaway.

**A/N**: **Jasmine, you need to update**. thanks to **Demon** and **Jasmine** for betaing. Happy October everyone! Title is taken from Robert Jager's Mystic Chords of Memory. My favorite measure in that piece? A few measures before the end where you hear the piano play the Star Spangled Banner that cues in the flute solo. hehe.. and btw? This idea came to me in February while I was playing that solo. Yeah.. it took me quite a while to begin.

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"Agent Vaughn, thank you for attending this meeting," Devlin says paternally as you open the conference room door. It might have been the voice of an adult addressing a young child had there been a slight hint of a reprimand in his tone. Agents look up from paperwork as you move across the room to sit next to Jack Bristow. There is an eerie silence that pervades the room while knowing eyes exchanged glances of pity. Jack is dressed in a somber black.

A feeling of uncertainty washes over you. There is something wrong with everything that has happened since the moment you entered the room—that, you know. Devlin with his more than usual mild manners, who should have directly chastised you, should have been your first clue. But you overlook it because you were in a rush to get to your seat. It seems so important at that moment to not get in any more trouble than being late to a meeting. The agents that are not concentrating on their work, instead taking valuable time to be compassionate, should have been your second. You misinterpret their sympathy as the constant spreading of rumors that normally happens near the water cooler but has moved into the meeting room that day. The rumors about the lack of a professional relationship with Sydney that the Agency is suspicious of—but that you are very aware of.

Jack, wearing a funeral black, is your third strike. If you even care. You know he wears a lot of black; that's who he is—a depressed man with a lot of hidden anger and a deep love for his daughter. But the dreary black contrasts against his jaded eyes, resulting in a man that you instinctively know did not sleep much the night before. These thoughts whirl around in the back of your mind, but never seem very important. Rushing to your seat does. As you look back, you wish you took more time getting to your seat and concentrated more on your environment. Maybe you would have been more prepared, less caught off guard. It would have postponed the news. And maybe, you would have been able to just live a few more precious seconds.

"Sorry, sir. I didn't realize there was a meeting until my secretary told me," you reply as you sit down. You take out a legal pad from your briefcase and the Kings pen from your shirt pocket, ready and anticipating the thrill of brainstorming a new countermission for Sydney.

You've been away for a week to France to visit your mother and had let Weiss design Sydney's countermissions. You have had no connection to the CIA for the past week and feel a bit out of the loop. But after a week of refocusing your mind, you're eager to jump back into your one goal: save Sydney so that you can have a future together. Your reasons for being a CIA agent have changed over the years. You joined the agency to avenge your father's murderer, but ever since you met Sydney, your world has turned right side up. Slowly, the missions that you carry out no longer are for your father's memory; they've been for Sydney.

Your wishes began to change October 1st, that day she walked into the CIA. While you might have been a lady's man in college, you've grown out of that phase and moved on to long lasting, stable relationships. There was no excitement or danger with Alice. You were a paper pusher with a great girlfriend. You were in your comfort zone. But once you met Sydney, it all changed. You wanted the excitement back. You wanted a relationship that had ups and downs and that you knew would be incredible, and you were willing to wait for that. You were willing to fight to get that chance. She became the reason why you wanted to get things done at work, and to work your hardest.

"Then I believe you have not been able to catch up with recent events."

He's correct. You haven't even touched the file folders on your desk before your secretary came by and tried to flirt with you. You just asked for your messages that have obviously accumulated over the week you were gone. After reading past the third message, your secretary had come back and said that you had a meeting that began five minutes ago. As she left, you suspected that she told you about the overdue meeting as a punishment for not responding to her advances.

You settle for nodding. "Yes, sir."

"The first thing you need to know is that we did everything that we could. Many people looked over Agent Weiss' countermission. We thought we had fooled proofed it."

"Sir?" You feel disconnected. Your heart starts getting chills as adrenaline wraps itself in your veins. The ground you stand on feels bottomless, and your stomach is dropping.

"Agent Vaughn... we're sorry to inform you that Agent Sydney Bristow has been killed in action."

You understand now. The fatherly behavior. The looks. Jack Bristow's attire. They're in mourning, and they're waiting for your reaction. You half expect yourself to run to the restroom and have your stomach pour itself out into a porcelain toilet, but you force yourself to remain calm. You don't cry and you won't become hysterical. There will be a time later for all three of those actions. Right now, you have a duty to your country, and an even more important one to Sydney, and you don't want more rumors going around about how you are a lover hell-bent on revenge. Even if that is what you feel inside. The only visible reactions are a flicker in your eyes as you start comprehending the information you just received, and the whiteness of your knuckles as they clutch at the Kings pen. You hide your pen under the table in between your lap, and continue to grasp at it, as if you are trying to choke the ink out. You are sure that Jack and Devlin were the only people that saw the flicker in your eyes.

Enough time has passed that all the other agents have lost interest in your lack of response to the news. Maybe they think you are in shock or disbelief, but you prove them wrong when you rather quietly say, "When? How? What happened?" They might have heard the disappointment in your words if they listen closely.

"The day after you left, Sloane had her sent to Manila in the Philippines. Apparently a vial of retroviruses had been manufactured. There was a rumor that they were going to sell it to the North Koreans. We don't know what happened in the laboratory. It seems as if she was injected with something—maybe by a guard. We did an autopsy on the body—"

You blanch. It is impossible to concentrate on what they did to her body. You remember the glow of her skin as you both lay naked on a bed with covers kicked off. The feel of her skin as water droplets streamed down her back after a shower. The softness of her kisses. The warehouse. The frame you gave her as a Christmas present. Your father's watch. The first time you told her you love her. You remembered basking in her love for you and yours for her. You remember the second time you made love was in the warehouse against the chain-linked fence, her body under yours—just because she couldn't wait for you to make sure things were secure and then bring her to your apartment.

You're afraid of replacing the youthful and beautiful image of her with one of a gray body. A lifeless body with its body cavity wide open.

You are not ready to deal with a life without Sydney.

"—there's also something else. When the pathologist ... examined... the body, they discovered that she was around two months pregnant."

Silence.

Your mind stops altogether.

And then it jumbles together with questions and possibilities. Did she know about the baby? If she did, why would she continue going on missions? It'd only been two months—she probably didn't know about it. You were about to be a father.

You look around the room. Apparently, all the other agents knew before you and are looking at you for your reaction again. Shock doesn't begin to describe the feeling you feel. Jack's face, however, shows that he didn't know that fact either. He meets your gaze and stares you down. You nod and he knows. You expect anger to spark on his features, but he quietly accepts the fact and shows pity for you.

And the overall thought going in your head: _I just lost the both of them. Where is my life now?_

_-----------_

_23 years later_

"Michael Vaughn?"

"Yes, this is he. Who is this?"

"Hi, my name is Catherine Stepankov. I believe you know a Sydney Anne Bristow?"

Your voice gets caught in your throat.

"She died over 20 years ago," you say flatly. Hurt and regret fill your voice.

"You might want to come down here. It looks like we need to clear things up."


	2. pt 2

**A/N**: I hope those of you that can vote have registered! Those registration forms were due Monday. Absentee ballots requests are due October 26th. Especially voters who range from 18-25. Vote, otherwise your voice will be lost.  
  
I'm sorry for the long time between updates. I know I said Friday, but if you read Jasmine's post, then you know I got on the wrong bus. And that bus took me off campus. And I ended up in Old Town San Diego. Which is really far from campus/Scripps Institute. Yeah. So I lost about 3 hours of writing time that day. Then all last week and Monday, I had midterms (Which didn't go well at all). So, that's why you're getting an update today... and it's super long (for a post by me anyways).

Thanks to **Jasmine** for being my beta. **Demon** for inspiration. And **Angel** for my sanity.

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You're stuck in the airplane. Your legs are cramped in the tiny space, and it doesn't help that the person in front of you has decided to incline her chair back, shifting the dining table into your stomach. You don't know what situation you're heading into. It could be a trap. Maybe it's some elaborate plan by an enemy of the United States of America. Not that you care anymore. Let them end all your misery. Then you might be happy. But you hope they let your curiosity come to an end first. That phone call might just end all your questions. All you know is that you got a call from a Catherine Stepankov and that she evidently knows what happened to Sydney. Maybe something the CIA never found, never documented. Your mind wouldn't even focus on the rest of the conversation. The name Sydney dragged up too many memories you tried so hard to forget. That day was so clear in your mind. After that meeting, Jack Bristow pulled you aside in a dark corner and said the words you'll never forget.  
  
_She loved you, you know. If this unfortunate situation never happened, I'm almost sure you would have been my son-in-law. Thank you for being there for her when I wasn't._  
  
You had told Jack that she loved him as well, even if he hadn't been there for her. You had seen it every time she spoke of her father, though she didn't realize it herself.  
  
You close your eyes. It's still painful after twenty years. Twenty years without her. Something you never had wanted to imagine before. You never got the chance to say goodbye, to be there to say you loved her one last time. That's what you regret the most, never being allowed to say goodbye. You're hoping this trip brings some closure. Maybe that's what you need, closure. But you don't know anymore. It's been hard making any type of decision for so long. You had always imagined that you'd be making decisions _together_. But it didn't happen that way. You weren't ready to make decisions by yourself all over again; you were just starting to get used to the fact that you had to consider another opinion in any choice.  
  
You wonder what your life would be like if only she had lived. Would you be watching your son graduate from graduate school right now? Would you be watching your daughter talk about marrying her boyfriend and begging you not to be too protective of her? You no longer know and you no longer know what to think.  
  
You had all these wishes planned out, but it all shattered. You should have known nothing goes to plan... _The best laid plans of mice and men oft go astray,_ you hear Sydney's voice whisper in your ear, always ready to bring forth a literary reference. You have long ago stopped turning around whenever you think you hear her. When you used to turn around, you were always met by disappointment, followed by a long string of degradations of how it's all wishful thinking. They were always figments of your imagination anyways. You miss her.  
  
"Excuse me? Can I get out to the aisle please?" You automatically move away without thinking about what the man beside you said. You're still lost in your memories.  
  
Move on, that's what everyone told you to do, and in a way, what you told yourself. Weiss set you up with a couple of women now and then. It never lasted more than six months. You'd hit a day in April or a day in October or the anniversary of your father's death, and you'd give up and realize you can't help but compare the women to Sydney. Sometimes it was as simple as the fact that her eyes weren't a warm honey brown like Sydney's. Most of the time, it was because you remembered your father's watch and how it stopped the second you met her. You never used to believe in regal tales like that, until it actually happened to you. Once the memory cut into your consciousness (since you tried so hard to suppress every treasured memory), you could no longer date the woman you were with. Just the thought that Sydney was supposed to be the one you were destined to be with and that you weren't with her made you think you were doing the wrong thing. It is always easier to get out early rather than later.  
  
But you like to think Sydney was trying to find someone for you, someone that was a match, although not like the two of you were. Just... close enough that you could be happy, so that you won't have to live the rest of your life alone and miserable in a retirement house and no one to visit you. Sometimes, you wish you didn't love her like you did because it closed doors to other possibilities. But then you think it over, and you realize loving Sydney made you love everything else more, and any one second with her made life much more bearable. Then again, you don't have her anymore.  
  
The watch on your wrist beeps signaling a passing of an hour, refocusing your senses on your surroundings. Just a few more hours you tell yourself until you get to Dulles. Ironic. The Dulles brothers--one CIA, the other the Secretary of State under Eisenhower. Another reminder of the life you have been trying to escape for the past fifteen years. It just wouldn't go away.  
  
A refreshment cart is being pushed down the aisle and closer to you. When did the man next to you come back? You don't remember letting him back in. He must have stepped over you. The baby behind you has stopped crying, you realize, but you don't know how long ago, you can't seem to remember. Ever since that day in the conference room when Kendall told you that Sydney was pregnant, you haven't been able to look at a baby without resenting it. Why did that life live and his little one not? It wasn't fair. _But it's never been fair_, you tell yourself. You can no longer look at an innocent chubby face and not think of the life that you never got to live. You had a moment of thrill when Kendall told you Sydney was pregnant, until you realized that it would never happen. You never would be able to be a father.  
  
"Sir, would you like something to drink?" the stewardess asks, taking you away from regrets.  
  
"Umm... a coffee please? One cream." You reply automatically, a little harried and still a bit focused in your thoughts.  
  
"No sugar?" she insists, leaning into your face a bit too much for your liking.  
  
Your mind drifts to when Weiss asked Sydney for a hug. That was before your first date, you realize. That's why you gave up the two sugars in your coffee. Everything reminded you of her. Even sugar.  
  
"Sir?"  
  
"No, thanks." You respond.  
  
"Are you sure? I can give you a lot of sugar." She bats her eyelashes and sets one hand on her hip after flipping her wavy blonde hair behind her shoulder.  
  
Great. Flirting. Just what you need. You're fifty plus years old and stewardesses are still flirting with you. You don't know if you should take that as an insult or flattery.  
  
"No thank you, ma'am," you say it a little harsher than necessary, but you really don't want her to think you're interested in her proposal.  
  
"Fine. Going for the nuts?" She hands you a bag with a napkin and pushes her cart down to the next row behind you, the one with the baby. _Who would have thought aviation mannerisms would still be the way they were twenty years ago?_ you think and slightly smirk.  
  
The baby behind you is fussing again, most likely due to the altitude change. Slight turbulence doesn't bother you anymore. You're used to flying everywhere you need to be, especially because you were a CIA field agent. Flying now has because much less frequent, but there still are times you have to fly. You're a professor now, unmarried, childless, not in a relationship. Your students don't necessarily care about you. They don't think you're the best teacher in the department, but they also don't think you're the worst one there. Instead, you're the one in the middle that also follows the rule of three midterms per course, even if a midterm usually means in the middle of the term. But you think it's a better way of getting your students to be prepared for the final. It's a constant review that they have to be caught up with.  
  
After five years at the CIA without Sydney, they managed to take down SD-6. That was the end of your work there. You felt no obligation to stay at a place that took three of the most important lives that are kept close to your heart. The Alliance collapsed and you were the one to shoot Sloane in the head. You claimed brief insanity to the CIA and they understood why. Everyone at the CIA new you loved Sydney for a long time. After she died, you felt no reason to hide your love for her, even if there was going to be a punishment. There was a picture of her you pulled from her file that sat in a silver antique frame next to your computer. Your superiors let that show of defiance slide by. Insanity was the reason they gave anyone who questioned it. The CIA probably knew the child was yours as well. After the fall of the Alliance, you felt like you have finished what Sydney could no longer finish. So you left. You became what she always wanted to be—a professor. You sent in a resume to UCLA and they accepted you without question. You had finished your Masters in International Affairs, which you are now grateful for, so they let you be a professor. It would most likely have been the job you would have changed to if you and Sydney had gotten married and settled down.  
  
You had tried to cut off all connection from the CIA, but it was impossible. You go to O'Callaghan's every September 16th and have a drink with Jack. One time Irina even came along, but the next year she didn't come back. You don't know why. You never ask about her anymore, you only know she was allowed out of the JTF every once in a while with Jack. While sitting there, the two of you never talk, only take in each other's misery, pain, guilt, and love for Sydney Bristow. Jack was there brooding the loss of his daughter and grandchild, both taken before he died. You once heard him mutter under his breath, "It's wrong, it's wrong. She should be here instead of me." You're there trying to figure out how you got so far without both Sydney and your unborn child. You can no longer think of Sydney without remember your child as well. You and Jack were both there to keep each other from getting too drunk to stand. But then Jack passed away this year. Now it looks like you're going to go to O'Callaghan's by yourself on September 16th, take the darkest corner booth and drink yourself under the table.  
  
Weiss still works for the CIA. He got married a few years back to a woman named Natasha and they are expecting their third child soon. You never can bring yourself to ask about the children, it just reminds you of what you lost, but you hear it from Craig sometimes, who transferred down to the LA branch of the CIA in the past two years. Weiss is a good man, but you don't really talk to him anymore. There was too much history, and he knew what you had gone through in those days after Syd died. You probably hadn't talked to him for two months before you called him yesterday to ask about a Catherine Stepankov.  
  
The call to Weiss had been a swift decision. You didn't care about endangering yourself. You just wanted some background information to see if you can figure out the connection between you, Sydney, and the girl who called you. After a few minutes of debating on whether or not to help you, Weiss still had not come to a decision. So you threw down the reason why this was so important to you. You just had to say the word "Sydney" for him to understand. He was one of the few that understood your lack of closure and your inability to move on. He figured this was one of ways for you to leave your current status of limbo and live a little, finally settle down, and let your restless soul calm down.  
  
You think back to this morning and the warning he heeded.  
  
"Professor Vaughn," you automatically answered. The days of answering the phone with a simple "Hello," "Vaughn," or even "Agent Vaughn" were now far gone.  
  
"Hey man."  
  
"Weiss. What did you find out about her?" your voice was a little too eager, even to your own ears.  
  
"There's nothing much to tell you. Why don't you come down to the park and I'll give you what I dig up. But like I said, there isn't much."  
  
So you drove down to the park behind the JTF. And when you finally arrived, you had to forcefully block out the image of Sydney running down the paths in her jogging outfit and her hair tied in a ponytail in the back. Of course, you've only seen her jogging down the trails from the security camera hidden through one of the trees in the park.  
  
You spotted Weiss on a bench facing an ice cream truck handing out treats to little kids. You steel yourself from the emotions pouring over you.  
  
"Hey," you greeted him.  
  
"Hey. You don't look too bad in that professor outfit. What have you been teaching these days? Something about an international syndicate and how they'll affect the outcome of world politics?"  
  
"Yes, as a matter of fact, I am," you deadpanned. You're not really in the right mood to be dealing with Weiss' attempts at making you laugh.  
  
"Look. I'm just trying to cheer you up."  
  
"I know and I appreciate it. But right now, I really want to focus on this."  
  
"Sure, man." He dug into his briefcase and pulled out a thin manila folder. "This was all the information I could find. She doesn't have a criminal record, so you don't have to worry about that."  
  
You took the folder and put it in your own briefcase without bothering to look at it. There would be plenty of time to read it later when you were closer to the subject of the file.  
  
"Thanks. I really owe you one." You said, standing up again.  
  
"Yeah... just... find something. And try to be happy again. You deserve it. You can't just keep hanging on to the past like you are."  
  
"I know. That's what I'm looking for. And I just have a feeling that this Catherine person will bring me to whatever I need."  
  
"Whatever you say. Just come back in one piece."  
  
"I need to go, my flight leaves in a couple of hours. I'll tell you what I find when I get back."  
  
And with that, you said your goodbyes and left.  
  
Your watch beeps again. Another hour has passed. You look down at it. 10 o'clock in the morning. You still have another three hours before your flight will arrive. With a sigh, you get up and grab your bag from the overhead bin.  
  
Now was as good a time as any to get started on reading what you couldn't bear to read before.  
  
-----------------

TBC.

--

I'm not making any more promises on what day updates are. I have another midterm tuesday. ::shrug:: It's up to my schedule. And hopefully I don't get on another wrong bus. 

Thank you to **Fair Cate, Fan-Kitty, jandl, alllieee, Sara, Valley-girl2, genevra, **and **Ren201** for their awesome reviews. Just two small notes:

**Valley-girl2**: I'm so sorry e-mails haven't been returned. ::flower:: I changed e-mail addresses. Also, all other fics have been finished ;)

**Genevra**: Welcome back to the world of alias fanfic.

And another thank you to: **Valley-girl2** for adding me to your favorites list.

And thank you to: **faith angelli, Queen Qwenyvere, LeiraNoxid, mathewperrysgirl, antz, sydofthesea, maggieann452, alllieee, valley-girl2, Ruby015, HandlesVartan, oOspuffy4everOo** for adding me to their author alert watch list.

That's never happened to me before, so I have to say, I'm very excited. Thank you so much for reading and reviewing. It lets me know my writing is appreciated and I'm very grateful for that.


	3. pt 3

**A/N**: WOOHOO! Update time! Anyways... Thank you so incredibly much to **Jasmine** and **Demon** who beta'd. I really like this part... so... yeah. Oh.. and thanks to **yumytaffy** for her persistence. And a note to self (and to those of you reading _The Epic of Gilgamesh_): Noses don't come out of worms.

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You stare at the cover of the file, and expel a sigh. Weiss had scrawled, "Catherine Stepankov," on the front in black ink. What will the file bring? You don't know exactly, but you do know that it'll either let you move on or bring another disappointment. You hope it's not disappointment, yet if you bring it to chance, it won't be happiness. Earlier, you told Weiss that you thought Catherine was going to have the answers you need, but in reality, you aren't that hopeful. It was just a ploy to make Weiss believe you're doing okay, that you feel like you have a chance of moving on. However, the world has been disappointing you ever since you lost Sydney. You wouldn't be surprised if it did it again.

Holding your breath, you open the thin file. A short note from Weiss is blocking the rest of the file from your view. You move it aside without reading it. It was probably a "good luck with finding what you need" note anyways. It isn't something you need to read—at least, not for now.

The first thought that comes to mind when you see her picture is that she's around your child's age, if your child had lived. Your eyes close automatically. You're not sure if you can do this. It's almost too hard just looking at a picture. You had repeatedly wondered what your child would have looked and behaved like. Would he or she have looked more like Sydney or yourself? In all your dreams, the child would have had Sydney's eyes. They were always warm and expressive. That's what you loved most physically about Sydney, her eyes. You had hoped that it would have been passed down to your child. Would your child have been a great ballerina or a hockey player? Would he or she have a wild streak in them or be a mellow person? Would you have been a good father? _Stop thinking about what never happened._

You open your eyes and force yourself to read the biographical data Weiss provided. October 3, 2001, her birthday. How ironic that it was two days after you met Syd. If someone is orchestrating this, you have a feeling they're doing a damn fine job making you doubtful and uncomfortable.

Her driver's license photocopy has her listed as having gray eyes and curly, light brown hair. Both of which are evident on the picture you saw. She graduated from UCLA and received honors, majoring in Law and Society. Before her third year at UCLA, she had a six month intermission with the FBI. The file listed that she lived in Maryland for that period and the things she was taught while in the internship, as well as the other interns who participated. Nothing panned out though. There is no current or former connection between any of the interns and any major crime syndicate. The realization that there was no connection during this time worries you. You're not sure how to take it. If it were that she had had connections to a syndicate, you would know that the chances you are headed in for a probable let down is much higher. But with so much innocence on the page in front of you, you're still unprepared emotionally.

_Keep_ _reading. Focus, Michael. You need to do this for Sydney. Concentrate. Don't let your mind wander otherwise you're completely useless—again,_ you tell yourself. Self-pity always did something for your perseverance, whether positive or negative.

Catherine, during the internship, met a man named Jonathan Ambler. They dated for three months before she returned to UCLA to continue her studies. In her third and last year, at UCLA, she was pregnant with Ambler's child. She was a single mother at the age of 20. But it seemed like having a child didn't slow her down, she applied to several law schools, and decided on Columbia law. This only serves to remind you of Sydney. Sydney used to work non-stop, at least until everything was completed otherwise she felt like she was never doing her best. The pain of thinking of Sydney returns, and you force yourself to concentrate.

During Catherine's two years at law school, she once again excelled at what she was doing. She married in her last semester to Jonathan Ambler, the same man who is the child's father. Apparently, she decided not to change her last name. Ambler is clear of any wrongdoing other than a few traffic violations when he was in his early twenties. He is working with the FBI in the Hoover building. Catherine has been working in a law firm in Virginia. Their home is in Maryland, which is where Catherine instructed you to go.

You look at your watch and realize that you should be approaching Dulles airport pretty soon and should start packing up your files. You are more than a bit disappointed that Weiss didn't find anything of value for you. Maybe you are beginning to get paranoid—it's not an unlikely fact. You've always been suspicious of people and their possible ulterior motives, and even more so ever since Sydney died. You had begun to think and act like Jack for a brief amount of time before you realized that Sydney wouldn't have wanted you to have lived such a dispassionate life. Not like you have a life now anyways.

--

You unpack your suitcase in another nameless hotel room. One of hundreds you've stayed in around the world. Before arriving to your room for the night, you had decided to waste time walking around on the streets to get yourself acclimated with the East coast. You had walked past many houses and parks along your way before you finally arrived back at the hotel.

You go around doing your daily nighttime ritual: stripping down to boxers and tugging on a white t-shirt, flossing and brushing your teeth, and turning down the covers. Reaching over to the lamp by your side, you flick it off, and slip under the covers. You feel like you're waiting for something to happen, but you don't know what it is. It might be an end to your wary soul-searching journey, although, you've been searching for that for a while now.

You want to know why she had to go. It couldn't have possibly been her time. She had so many things unfinished. You shake your head. You don't want to return to the image that Kendall had so tactlessly described to you. It's been haunting you for more than twenty years and you feel like it has to stop now or you'll go insane. _Stop thinking about her.__ Stop thinking about her…_

With those words in mind, you let yourself drift to other subjects. _Did I turn off the bedroom lights when I left the house today? I'll just check when I get home. It's raining at home. I hope the newspaper won't be soaked. Will it rain tomorrow here? What was the house number I have to be at tomorrow? Oh yeah. House number 452, third on the left on Maple Lane. It should be a nice suburban area for a new family. Are the maple trees… _Your thoughts are lulling you to sleep. As you're on the brink of wakefulness and sleep, you feel a dip in the bed next to your body. You jerk yourself up a little too fast; you feel the blood rush in your head and see bright spots in your sight before they blink out like twinkling stars.

"What the hell?" you exclaim unconsciously. The sound is absorbed into the thin walls.

Orientating yourself, you look around and don't see anyone there. You crawl out of bed and take out your handgun that you've kept with you after your days at the Agency. It is the same gun you used to kill Sloane. In your mind, it's your lucky gun; it's saved you when you were on countless missions with Sydney and those when the Alliance collapsed. It calms your nerves when you feel the familiar weight in your hand and against your calluses. Recently, you've come to think of it as if Sydney is guiding the gun and making sure you remember everything from your Agency days.

You cross the room, your back against the wall, and snap the light switch to the on position. Like you feared, you don't see anyone there. Your move along the walls—"Keep your backs away from the enemy and unguarded open areas!" your defense instructor had always yelled—and peer into the bathroom. You find it empty. You start to wonder if you imagined it all. No one is in your room. Your eyes pass over the plaque on the back of the door, which you instinctively know as the emergency fire route map, past the jumbled letters of the newspaper on your bedside, and rest on the diaphanous curtains. The gossamer threads are torn on the left curtain, which prompts you to check them. You're not sure if it's the result of the maybe intruder or if they were from a previous occupant.

"Who's there?" you say as you approach the curtain. You don't spy feet where the curtains touch the ground, which makes you very certain that no one is there. You shake the cloth anyway just for the sake of doing something and not feel helpless. Like you thought, there is no one there. There is no one at all in your room. You go around the room and check all the windows and doors once more, locking one window in the process.

You sit on your bed and wonder what just happened. You're almost sure you felt someone sit down next to you while you were sleeping. You play with the gun in your hands. Back and forth from hand to hand. You're not sure if you can trust your sanity. The fact that you were so sure that someone was there keeps you in check. You may be getting old and paranoid, but the keen sense you need as a spy tells you that you're perfectly sane. You don't know who, but that's almost irrelevant. You no longer sense that anyone is there. A few minutes later, you place the gun down in the bedside drawer and pull the covers back over your body. You need your sleep if you're to talk to Ms. Stepankov with a clear and focused head tomorrow.

Tossing and turning, you can't seem to find a perfect position to sleep in. You finally give into a habit you picked up years ago and take the extra pillow and hug it. You thought you broke that habit a few months ago, but the need to feel someone next to you is overwhelming right now. Hoping to fall asleep, you rest your cheek on the pillow.

This time, when you feel the bed dip next to you, you don't react. You're not sure why. But for some reason, you know no one is there. The hand pressing down on your hair and playing at the nape of your neck isn't really there. You do know that it's comfortable and relaxing and you want it to last forever because you know Sydney is there once again. Right next to you. And her presence pacifies any qualms you had.

"Hey."

"Hey," you feel a breathy voice in your ear.

"What are you doing here?" you murmur in a sleepy voice.

"Watching over you, silly," she says in a teasing tone. It's playful; something you wish you took more time cherishing when the both of you had been together in the warehouse. She presses a kiss into your hair, and then another on your forehead. "You know, you have too many worry lines now. They almost resemble the sand dunes in Arabia."

"And whose fault is that?" you reply, falling back into your almost forgotten lighthearted banter.

Her fingers glide over the wrinkles. It's as if she's trying to massage all of them out individually. As she does this, you feel more relaxed than you've been in a long time.

"Vaughn," she draws out your name after a moment of silence, and you can't remember it ever sounding so nice. "You need to take care of yourself."

"I am, Sydney. I'm alive, aren't I?" You try to drag her out of her more serious tone of voice. You know it was futile from the start.

She's quiet for a long time. "Are you, Vaughn? I'm not so sure anymore. I haven't heard you laugh in so long."

"That's because there's nothing to laugh about, Syd."

"That's not true, you laugh when you're with me," she states quietly.

You think for a minute, "If only you can be with me everyday."

"I try, Vaughn. But sometimes, I feel like you need to let go. It's better for you to let go."

She's asking you to do the hardest thing you'll ever have to do. And you know that you're hardly ever capable of resisting her, but this is one thing you know you have to deny her. "I can't do that. You know it, too. I just can't. I'm not ready." Her hands continue to smooth out the wrinkles. "You know I love you, right, Syd? And that I wish I could say it to you again and again and again."

"Of course I do," she answers immediately. "And you know I love you, too. But I want to see you happy."

"I want to be happy. I just don't know how anymore. It's been too long."

"Exactly, Vaughn. It's been too long since you've been happy. And you know it's bad when my father is even worried about you," she quips.

"Jack? Why would he be worried?" you ask. You're much more awake now, but you're afraid that if you open your eyes, she'll disappear. You roll yourself over and leave the pillow. You face her and move your arms in front of you, trying to locate her. Once you do, you hug her around the middle and breathe in.

Her fingers, which had been idle for a few moments, start threading themselves through your hair. "Because he knows you've changed a lot. Because he's afraid you're turning into him."

Your arms squeeze her a little tighter. "The truth is I'm afraid I've already turned into him." You take a breath and realize you need her to hear this because in doing so, you'll be hearing yourself out as well. "I surround myself with students everyday, and yet I have a hard time dealing with just the mere thought of children. Because if I think about it, then I fully grasp what it is I lost. And I don't want to face that again. So I try to avoid the subject whenever I can. And instead of thinking of my students as college students, I think of them as… I'm not sure. I just can't think of them as students otherwise it makes me think of small kids. And when that happens… I just can't think about it. Now, I feel like Jack because I have to be so cold about everything. I have to block myself from so many things because they remind me of you. And why I think about you, I get depressed. I want you to come back home."

"Have you ever thought about speaking to Weiss about it?" she offers comfortingly, sidestepping your last sentence of your monologue. You both know it couldn't happen.

"I can't, Syd. He has kids. I don't want him thinking I hate his kids. Besides, with you around, why would I need to talk to Eric?" you joke.

It falls flat at the seriousness of her tone.

"Vaughn…"

Sometimes you feel like when you're talking to her, you're in actuality talking to yourself. She's the side of you that makes you wonder if what you're doing is the right thing. Not exactly a conscience, but something that resembles it.

"I know, I'm making this difficult." You both fall quiet again, just relishing in each other's company. You reach up and tug her hand, "Come here, I want to hold you."

You feel the covers lift up and Sydney slide in under them. You move your arms back around her. Her face is resting on your chest, and her body is right next to yours. You can't remember the last time you felt so whole. You love the feeling of having her next to you. She makes you feel happy and peaceful. The tension just flows out of you.

"So what are you doing here, Vaughn?"

You know she knows the answer, but you'll do anything to hear her voice again and again. You can feel the vibrations in your chest when she talks, and she no doubt feels it when you speak.

"I'm just following another lead, Syd. Isn't that what I'm supposed to be doing? I want to find out what happened to you," you whisper to her sadly.

"Stop it. You need to live for yourself. Even though I wish I could be with you all the time, I can't now. But you need to keep going. That's how it works. You need to move on. You're not living anymore. I never wanted to see you like this. I watch you, and you're not the same man I originally fell in love with. I still love you, but you've changed," she says almost harshly.

You pause before you respond. You don't want her to get angry, otherwise she might leave. And then where would that leave you? You'll be alone again. "I promise I'll move on once I find out why, Syd. I need it. Why won't you tell me?"

"I can't, Vaughn. It's as simple as that. I just can't."

You feel her eyes on your face and you have to resist yourself from opening your eyes and ruining it all.

"Then I don't think I'll ever be able to move on. I've searched for so long, trying to figure out what happened in Manila. I'm afraid I'll never find the answers I want."

"Hmm… that's where you're wrong. This is the end of the journey Vaughn. This is where you're going to find all your answers. I know it. And I know you'll believe it sooner or later." She moves her hand up and touches your chin, rubbing her thumb over the cleft on your chin. It tickles. The memory of her doing this before is almost too much for you. You want to see her. Instead, you draw her even closer to you and bury your head in her neck.

"How do you know?"

"Because this is where it all ended for me. And I think you'll be more pleased by the outcome than you originally thought after you sort it all out in your head."

You know you have a quizzical expression on your face. She chuckles. "What do you mean?"

"Shh… You need to sleep now." You start to feel yourself drifting back asleep.

"But I don't want to sleep. I want to be with you," you slur.

"Liar. Go to sleep. I'll be right here." She hugs her arms around you, and you continue to hold her as well.

"I love you, you know," you force out, afraid you won't be able to say it for a while.

"I know. I love you, too."

You feel yourself fade out into sleep.

--

You wake up in the morning feeling more rested than you have for weeks, and look around the room. No one's next to you. In fact, the pillow you thought you had been hugging at one point during the night was lying perfectly unwrinkled and seemingly untouched on the other side of the bed. You get up and look around. The gun you know you stored next to the bed was not there. You look around the vicinity of the drawer. Twenty minutes later, you give up and look in your suitcase. It's where you packed it when you left for the trip.

You don't understand what's going on. Finally, you came to one conclusion. It was all a dream. Only, this time, unlike the other few times, it's probably because you're anxious to meet with Ms. Stepankov. And you irrevocably comprehend that this time along with the other times in the past six months can't be chalked up to coincidence. You need to figure out why you keep dreaming she's next to you at night. Because after these dreams, you find yourself wanting to escape back into Sydney's arms and to never leave the dream world you've created.

--

Pulling up to 452 Maple Lane, you stare at the modest cream-colored house. _This_ _would have been the type of house I would have wanted to share with Sydney_, you think. You see someone glance out of the curtain and realize you should get out of the car and knock on the door. You're five minutes early.

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**tbc**

--

Thank you to **Fair Cate, Genevra, Jandl, Valley-girl2 (x2), Aquarius4, Fanatic707, Forceful, Monkey47, **and **purplefuzz**for their awesome reviews.

Thank you to **purplefuzz****, monkey47, **and **genevra** for adding me to their favorites list.

Thank you to **Fair Cate, Aquarius4, **and **sunshine231** for adding me to their author alert list.

All of you guys have no idea how much that means to me.

Ooh.. I'm going to feel super guilty later today because I haven't replied properly to your reviews. I'm sorry. But it's 2AM and I'm desperately tired. Good night all. I hope you'll forgive me for not replying?


	4. pt 4

**A/N**: Thank you so much to **Jasmine** for pushing me to write and for looking over the logical order of my story. And thank you to **yumytaffy** for betaing the story… and for answering some questions relating to the show.

Sorry this chapter has taken so long to write. 20 units and continuous midterms really eat up a student's time.

This chapter contains some S3 and S4 (mainly "Tuesday") spoilers. Enjoy. There's another A/N at the end of the chapter.

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You walk past the picket fence and the fallen foliage near the tire swing. Its knot was clumsily made, but it will hold for the next few years. The air in front of you forms ghosts as you breathe in and out. Inhale; exhale. You try to keep your calm, but your finger shakes as you press the doorbell. You haven't been so scared since one of Sydney's last missions. You're not sure why. You've met countless informants, but the urge to hyperventilate has never been so palatable. _Inhale, exhale_, you remind yourself. And mostly, since a few months after Sydney's death, you've almost be void of emotions or at least those to the eye. Only when you are at your most vulnerable have you truly experienced emotions you thought you never would experience again.

You wait ten seconds. Seven more, and you finally hear footsteps approaching the door. You ready yourself mentally.

"Yes?" A young man answers the door. His posture is one of ease.

Studying him before replying, you see a flicker of recognition and hope flash behind his eyes before he hides it away. He has sandy blond hair, much like yours, and a build of a runner. He is not a desk jockey who shuffles papers around. Rather, he's a field agent, and you get the feeling that he's damn good at his job. You should have pulled his file, too.

You wonder what this man and his wife know that would be useful to you. They seem too young to know anything but innocence. But you remember back to what Sydney endured, and behind her apparent innocence laid a woman with too many hopes dashed. Youth did not always mean that they're naïve to the gravity and heartaches of life, you remind yourself.

"I'm looking for Catherine Stepankov. Are you her husband?" you hear yourself ask with courtesy even though you're in turmoil. You've waited years for information on Sydney. You still doubt this young couple can give you information that's worthwhile and not outdated, but that flicker in the young man's eyes tells you you've found something.

"Yes, I am, but you already knew that when you pulled both our records. Jonathan Ambler," he says good-naturedly as he reaches out to shake your hand. He has a firm grip, you realize, which means he's probably a good shot. _Both their records? Weiss must have pulled his and forgot to send it to me._ You push that thought to the back of your mind.

"Michael Vaughn."

He nods and turns around. "Catherine! Agent Vaughn is here."

You haven't been called Agent Vaughn in so long, and you want to correct him, but you realize that he very well knows that you are no longer an agent. If he knew that you had Weiss pull their records, then he knows that you're no longer an agent. You just don't know why he'd call you by the title. He knows you're CIA and not simply State Department. So was calling you by a long ago title to pacify you or keep you on your toes?

He just gives you a wink when he turns back around and sees your expression.

"I'm coming!" you hear her call back.

She rounds the corner, and you see her. She's not what you expected, but then, you weren't sure what you were expecting. Her brownish-blonde hair is piled up on her head, and her gray eyes are sharp with intelligence. You might have expected to see the professional lawyer. What you are not prepared to greet is the young mother. In her arms is a child not much older than 3 years old with green eyes. You realize that they complement the murky green of Jonathan's eyes.

You feel drawn to the child. The anger you've always felt toward children is burning in your throat, but you feel yourself responding to the child in a way you've never felt before. He is dressed in jeans and a baseball T-shirt. It's been a trend lately among the younger children you've noted; this kid is probably wearing it no doubt from Jonathan's influence.

"How old is he?" The question tugs on your heart as you ask.

"He's almost three," is the reply you receive. So you were correct with your guess. "You want to hold him?" Catherine readjusts the kid so that he would be at the perfect angle to transfer to your arms.

You nearly choke on air and swallow your surprise. You know your eyes flash with hidden resentment. "No, that's fine. I don't know anything about children."

She gives you an odd look.

_No, I don't know anything about children, but then, I was never really given the chance now, was I?_ And having children or carrying other children who are not yours or Sydney's doesn't appeal to you at all. You give quite the opposite reaction than normal people. You want to turn and move away from all of them. However, you feel you can deal with just seeing the kid in front of you for just a little while longer. There's something about his eyes that haunt you.

"Is something wrong, Agent Vaughn?" Catherine glares at you. It's as if you offended her for not wanting to hold the child.

"No. Nothing's wrong, but can we just get to why I'm here?" you almost demand, not purposely, but because you had to focus on something other than the boy.

She gives you another familiar glare and brushes some strands of hair behind her ear. Her son had been pulling on her hair, and it had obviously been of some annoyance to her. "Yeah. Have a seat in the living room and get yourself comfortable. I'll go get you a cup of coffee, and this little tyke here will go to his father." She waves her arm in the direction of the living room and goes through a door before you can say anything. You hear the child squeal with laughter as Jonathan tickles him. You realize you never asked what the little boy's name is; Sydney would be disappointed you didn't.

When you came here, you had been hoping for some quick answers, but you realize that this is going to take much longer than you originally thought. _Maybe she does have the answers I want,_ you think. You're just hoping they won't be a disappointment now.

She comes back sans kid but with a chrome travel mug full to the brim with coffee. "Sorry 'bout the cup, but the other cups are in the dishwasher."

"It's fine. Thanks."

There's a lull in the flow of words between the two of you. _But then, there really haven't been many._ You observe her actions. She's sitting back and watching you watch her. You know you're both looking for any hint of a weak spot in yourselves that would give each other an advantage. She won't scare easily, and you're too stubborn to give her what she wants. She fidgets on the couch and starts pulling at the loose threads of a throw blanket. You finally notice that there's some classical music in the background. Schumann, maybe.

"So you're a bit of a legend at the Langley office, I hear," she starts the conversation and gauges your reaction.

The coffee cup is halfway to your mouth, but you set it down when you register what she said. "I should have known. The law firm doesn't exist does it? Or maybe it does; it's just a front for the CIA," your thoughts skip ahead. "Does your husband know, Ms. Stepankov?"

She smirks at you, looking as if she has you exactly where she wants you. Trapped. "Call me Catherine, and you're wrong. I do work for a law firm, and it isn't a front for the CIA that I know of. I only know because of what Sydney told me."

"Sydney? She never worked out of Langley and you would have been… two, three years old tops if you ever met her. I highly doubt you'd remember a memory from when you were three; so I don't know who your source is, but they're wrong. And you obviously don't have the information I'm looking for." You stand up to leave, angry and disappointed in yourself.

"Don't tell me that a small part of you isn't hoping that I'm correct, right, Agent Vaughn?" You feel like you're in Dr. Barnett's office again being analyzed. "Let me ask you something, Mr. Vaughn. How exactly did you fall in love with your asset?" She stares at you with eyes you recognize but can't place.

"What kind of question is that?" The situation is escalating out of control. You don't want anyone prying into your memories of Sydney, much less a stranger who's playing with your mind. You may be old, but you're not senile enough to blurt out anything concerning Sydney. Your memories are your own.

She knows she went a bit too far with the question; you see it in her eyes. But you also see the pleading written on her face. She might just be a girl looking for answers as well; to what, you don't know. And that's why you don't know if you should trust her, yet there's some familiarity in the way she speaks to you as if for all her life, she's known you. "It's just a question, Agent Vaughn."

You give her a wary look. You're still adamant that she's wrong. Sydney died, and you want her to rest in peace. You don't want to dig up a past that didn't end with a happily ever after. "You don't know Sydney."

"Do you need me to prove it to you? Fine." She pauses to search for a memory you both might share, possibly a memory close to both your hearts. "How about your father's watch? Should I recall that story for you, Agent Vaughn?"

You go still for a moment. You never told anyone else about your father's watch. The last time you ever mentioned the watch was when you said, "I love you" to Sydney at the warehouse just a few days before you lost her. It's hidden away in one of your office drawers. You don't remember which one anymore.

She's searching your face for recognition, but she knows she's on the right path.

She continues, "It stopped on the day you met her. October 1st of 2001. You told her your heart stopped when you met her by way of a story about your father. And let's see… you were a paper pusher after being stationed in India. And even there, you weren't as exposed in the field as you would have liked. Am I correct?"

You realize that you're still standing up, towering over her, but she is still the dominant one in the situation. Do you go or do you stay? How does she know this information? "You know Sydney?" you finally inquire, sitting back down.

She smiles. "I've only met her a few times. Most of what I know comes from her daughter."

Your mind is racing. If this… girl… in front of you knows Sydney, then that would mean that she was still alive after the supposed murder in the Philippines. How many years have you searched for her? And all along, she has been in a little town in Maryland. Is she well? Where does she live? But most of all… can you visit her? And why did Catherine not call you before? Why does she tell you _now_ that she knows Sydney? What happened? And did Sydney get married? How does she have a daughter?

You'll play her game. You'll pretend that Sydney was still alive after the retrovirus case and the guard didn't inject something into her body.

"Who are you?" you whisper.

Her smile just grows larger. You notice that she looks like a college girl with a secret she wants to spill. "Answer my question first. Just tell me. I need to know this before I tell you anything. Did you love her?"

And you find yourself wanting to tell this young woman everything about your love for Sydney. She might be an enemy agent, and if she is, she's a damn good one, but at this moment, you don't care. You don't know what to say to contradict her and are too weary of life to argue. It's been too many years of contained emotion just waiting for the opportune moment to spill out. Opportune moment or not, they are about to spill out regardless. CIA and the pledge you swore be damned. You don't care about the agency anymore.

"Yes, I do love her. I always have and still do. Even after her death, I did." When you mention Sydney's death, her eyebrows furrow making creases on her forehead. Maybe this is why you're here—to sort out the facts of Sydney's life. She wants information from the time you knew her, and you want information from what Catherine knew of her.

You continue on. Once you started speaking, you can't seem to stop. Right now, you're a very different man from any other moment before in your life. You're not the by-the-book youth or the ideal boy scout of your earlier CIA days. You don't idolize your father. You're still the bitter man, but now you're the bitter man with willing company and with words flowing out of your mouth. "I'm not sure when I fell in love with her, really, but then, no one really is supposed to know when they fall in love. It was so gradual. I don't know… it just...sort of happened. Maybe it was her smile. Maybe it was her innocence that she still retained even in the job we did. Maybe it was because she was strong and yet in need of love at the same time. I don't know. But something about her made me fall in love with her. When I first met her, I thought she was insane."

"Insane? Maybe we don't know the same Sydney after all," she quips. She's very absorbed in your story, and you find yourself glad that she is.

"Maybe. When I met her, she had Bozo hair. It was this shade of pinkish red. Her jaw was swollen from some teeth that had just been pulled out. And she was wearing a black sweater and black pants that were stained with blood and grime."

She chuckles, seemingly enjoying the description of the woman you love. It dawns on you that the description is probably a very different version of the Sydney she knows. "Why was she like that? What happened?"

You recollect yourself. Should you tell her? _Why not? Why not have someone else love the memory of Sydney as much as I love her?_ But at the same time, you want to be selfish and love her for yourself. You make up your mind.

"She was CIA, or that's what she thought she was. But she was really in a highly organized syndicate called SD-6, which was part of the Alliance. She thought she was working for the good guys, and when she found out, she came to us," you skim over most of details. She only needed to know the basics, you reason.

"Oh. I already knew that. I didn't know that's when you met though."

You ponder on where she gets all this knowledge about you. For a person who isn't connected to any criminal organizations or even the CIA, and who believes that Syd is still alive, she is too informed, or too imaginative. It bugs you. You're still trying to rationalize it all out, but without incorporating the fact that Syd is alive, you find it hard to do. She may have gotten a hold of a journal of some sort. She might be insane, which doesn't seem likely, and it still wouldn't tell you how she knows about the watch. Or she might really be telling the truth, and that scares you more than anything. But anticipation is a game, and you're here to sort it out.

"It's your turn to share some information," you prod.

"Who am I? Was that your question?" she asks.

You nod.

"I'm Ms. Bristow's daughter's friend." She sees the question in your eye and elaborates, "I'm older than her by a few years, but we get along pretty well. I'm sort of like her older sister in a way. She was very advanced at her age, so she skipped a few years ahead into my grade. We've been friends since elementary school, you see. I met her mom in fifth grade, I think, and I always thought she looked so sad. Kate explained that it was because she missed her husband."

Your heart pounds, then skips a beat. _So she did get married… if it really is her_, you can't help but think. You think Catherine paused to get your reaction, but you're not sure. You might have just missed some information and tuned in while she was getting a sip of coffee.

"She was like my second mother. Hold on, let me get my photo album." You watch as she runs out into an adjoining room and comes back with a black engraved gold book.

She deposits the album in your lap, expecting you to look through it yourself.

You lift you hand and run it along the spine, trying to find the courage to open the book. You hope it isn't a fake—full of altered, fallacious pictures. It would be you biggest let down, your biggest disappointment.

You flip to the middle of the album, and you see Sydney with two children. One of them looks like a younger Catherine, and you deduce that the other girl is Kate. They were very cute kids, you relent. But what attracted you the most was the smile on Sydney's face. She was happy.

"She was helping us make cookies. We prepared everything but then went to the living room to play a game. We forgot about the cookies, and when she smelled something burning, she ran to the kitchen. She told us that Francie usually did the cooking. We didn't know who Francie was, and she never told us, but she mentioned her a lot. Kate and I figured out that she had to have been a really good friend that died."

You nod your head and try to rub out the furrows that have been dug deeper in your forehead; you're still unable to respond. You had Weiss check up on Francie and Will once in a while. They had both moved on and finally found happiness between them. Sometimes, you wish you could have let go so easily.

You look down and to the right of the cookie dough picture. Kate and Catherine dressed as characters from _Alice in Wonderland_. You remember that Sydney had told you one time in the warehouse, leaning against the chain-link fence, the first edition of _Alice in Wonderland_ that her mother gave her. You lifted it from her house when she died. It's now sitting on your dusty bookshelf, the pages worn and text smudged from tears.

"That was in the second grade. She had just finished reading _Alice in Wonderland_ to Kate a few weeks before Halloween, and Kate had this idea that the three of us all be Alice for Halloween. And Sydney told us that she had dressed as Alice one time in her childhood. Kate was so excited about it. That was when my parents got a divorce. Sydney and my mother had an agreement that if Kate or I felt uncomfortable being home, that the other mother would look after the child for a period of time. That's why I know so much about her."

You just let her talk, trying to absorb everything she's saying as you're trying to figure out the truth behind her words.

She seems too familiar with Sydney to be faking her acquaintance, and it scares you. _Syd's alive._ They're the only words racing through your mind right now, unable to be removed for more conscious thought. You start believing it more and more.

And yet, this is the game you two are playing. You gauge her sincerity, and she gauges your reactions, trying to figure out how much you know or how much you don't. And you're uncovering so many hidden secrets you never knew, and how much you wish you knew them and the memories locked away behind them. You missed out on so much of her life, and only now are you shadowing those missing years, too many years late, too changed to do anything, and too cynical for your own good.

Reaching out to a picture, you trace Sydney's frame with your finger. You miss her with so much more intensity now than you've felt in these past few years combined. You want to feel her love for you again, to remove yourself from this state of pure insensitivity. This isn't who you were when Sydney was around, but then, so many things were different when she was around, and you long to go back to the then and stop living the now.

She wouldn't recognize you now. You still don't recognize who you've become. Not a big surprise. You try to live out of yourself, to reduce the pain. You trapped all emotions and drained them from your body. It would take a miracle for them to flood back into you.

And the miracle is in the pages on your lap.

Catherine breaks the silence. "The first time I met her, she introduced herself as Mrs. Eleanor Vaughn, which led me to my finding of you these past five years. She didn't give us, Kate and I, your name until a year ago. She also didn't tell us her real name until last year, too."

"Mrs. Vaughn?" you finally manage after a moment of silence. _She took my last name? Why did I not find her sooner?_

"Yeah, she was missing you."

You breathe. Exhale. Inhale. You wish you could breathe again. It's getting difficult to remain focused, and your thoughts want to scatter. _She was waiting for me. Where did she go? Why did she fake her death? Wait…Did she leave willingly? Did SD-6 find out about her? Why didn't the CIA tell you? Why did they mislead you? Did Jack know she was still alive? Kate. Kate Jones. She might be my daughter. She was a clue. Eleanor—your favorite grandmother's name; also a clue. Why has it taken me so many years to find out she was alive? And she took my name._ You want to let them lose the control you've kept them under, buried and protected for years. You finally allow your thoughts to escape to your planned marriage proposal so many years ago. You allow yourself to have a secret smile.

"Why are you smiling?" Catherine asks with suspicion in her voice.

"I was so close to proposing to her, you know. One time, when we were meeting—secretly of course—I had just gotten a ring for her and I wanted to propose to her right there. I knew I couldn't, and I did make myself listen to my head that time, but I would have proposed to her in this dank warehouse. Thinking back, I should have just done it. She caught me smirking to myself, and she asked me what I was thinking about. I just told her that I was a 'mysterious' man," you divulge. "I loved her. I still love her."

She looks at you expecting more. And you're willing to give her more.

"When I went home that night, I thought about the almost proposal, and I decided that when I did propose, it would be a perfect one. I hadn't meant to buy the ring earlier that day. I just came across it while I passed an antique store, and I thought it would be perfect for her. So that night, I was twirling the ring around in between my fingers, and I came to two outcomes on how I could propose to her."

She's looking at you eagerly. You're starting to feel a bit uncomfortable at how affected she is by this story, so you make yourself believe that she's going to be retelling the story to Kate later over the phone. It's the only explanation you want to accept right now.

"Sydney always loved the train station. She went there to watch people. Normal people. And she'd sit there and imagine what it would be like to live their lives," you look over and realize she's not following your story. The words continue to pour out, "I thought I would propose to her there at the train station and give her the normalcy she craved—give her the dream life she wanted in a way. I wanted to give her an out of the espionage life so badly. I wanted her to be happy. If she was happy, I was happy.

"I had it all planned out. I'd call and tell her to meet me at our bench at the train station. After she was waiting for me, I would have pretended to be late and come up and asked her to dance with me. She loved to dance, and I never was one for dancing, but I would have done anything for her. And we'd be off in our own corner, dancing. I think that would be when I'd whisper in her ear and tell her that the Agency raided SD-6, and that she'd be free. Then I'd go down on one knee and ask her." You're lost in your dream. You're glad someone is there to listen to the plans that never happened.

"What was the alternative?" her eyes dance with delight.

You watch her obvious enjoyment. At least now, you know your plan would have been romantic enough although you doubt it would have gone that way. Life has a way for making things not go according to plan, and you know it all too well. "The other option I came up with was to go to Santa Barbara right after her status as a double agent was completely nullified. We were going to eat at La Super Rica our arrival night, and the next day I was planning on bringing her to see the giraffe at the zoo with the crooked neck. She had a soft spot for giraffes. I had two plans for this option. If I got too nervous and didn't manage to propose at La Super Rica, I think I would have proposed to her next to the giraffe. It would have been a little weird, but I think she would have loved it." You pick up the mug and drink from it, then set it back on the table.

She looses herself in the story, but then her eyes refocus on you as she realized whose company she's in. Gone is the happiness in her eyes and gone is the relaxed college girl attitude she had adorned just a few seconds before. Animosity lies in front of you. You realize she remembered a reason to despise you, and you wonder what it is.

You glance over to your cup of coffee and you know something isn't right. You continue staring at it. Finally, you understand. The coffee is prepared exactly as you used to like it, back when Sydney was still alive—two sugars. But you never told her how you like it. She knows more about you than she's letting on. Some CIA agent you are… were.

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**A/N**: I would like to mention that the train station scene was originally in my head back in 2004. I'm convinced JJ is a mind reader and stole it. Joking. But it was pretty damn coincidental and it was freaking me out. Hence, I edited out most of the original scene and made it passive. However it's still "Tuesday" like, and I did add a few minor spoilers from it. :shrug: Hope you guys don't mind. …. Other than that… I'm still calling that train scene proposal my idea.

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**Fair Cate:** You should have just gone to bed and written a review in the morning! I hope you got enough sleep. I'm glad you enjoyed the dream sequence. Anyway, thank you so much for reading and reviewing.

**PKgirl**: Hmm… ;) You know. You should keep with your intuition. Thanks for reading and reviewing.

**Natalie**: Lol. I'm sorry. But if angst isn't your thing, you're not going to enjoy this story very much. The entire thing is going to be angst—possibly until the very last word. Thanks for reading!

**Monkey47**: That scene is all in Vaughn's head. She's not really there. It's just his subconscious. Thanks for reading.

**Catie**: Thank you!

**Valley-girl2**: Lol. Singing there? I'm so sorry it's been so long… well, always, between updates. But school has been… for a lack of a better word, hell. Just way too many exams… or as the professors like to say "midterms" (which is incorrect seeing as they have 3). Eww… I hate the falling feeling while sleeping. I haven't had it in a while, and I really hope it's gone for a while. Hehe. Vaughn should be "you" technically. Things should unfold as he figures things out. They can go both ways… or someone can be lying. Analytical analysis of that last line? It's just for a discomforting effect. And I think I achieved it. ;) Thanks so much for reading.

**Genevra**: Don't cry… please. It'll make me feel horrible. But here's the next update… only… 40 or so days after you reviewed it. ;) Sorry about the delay. Thanks for reading and reviewing.


	5. pt 5

**A/N**: Thank you to **yumytaffy** for the beta. Thank you to **Jasmine** for the encouragement. And of course, **Jasmine**—UPDATE! It's just not right that I'm updating twice before you do. We were supposed to alternate. And finally…. Wow, it hasn't been two months yet and I'm updating. Must be my avoidance of studying at work.

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"What do you know? Truthfully. And no more lies." You glance once more at your coffee cup and give her a pointed look. You're not sure if you're supposed to be afraid or not.

Her eyes are glaring at you with the utmost hatred. It could have rivaled the look Sydney used to have in her eyes whenever she mentioned Sloane. It's making you want to fall back and retreat, but you don't. You might have back when you were still Sydney's handler, but you've toughened with life's emptiness and have learned the secret to staying calm in emotional situations that Jack mastered. Things don't bother you as much as they did. You don't scare easy. The scariest thing has already happened in your life—you're living it right now. Nothing else can compare.

She grits out words that you don't understand. "I know you're lying. I know that you've become an amazing liar. The Michael Sydney told me about would never have lied to me about his love for her."

You feel like you should inject a few words in your defense, but you're perplexed by her sudden change of attitude. You wonder what she's talking about. No, you did not lie about any of the situations with Sydney. You might have skimmed over some parts because it was classified Omega-17, but other than that, you did not lie.

She continues, "Or maybe she was so disillusioned by the love she felt for you. You had me there, and I believed you for a second. Sydney was lucky enough to have never had you come back. She wouldn't be able to stand who you are now. You're a liar, and you're deceiving. You probably already moved on and are just acting a part to make us feel better."

You decide that that accusation is unwarranted and enough. "Look, you asked me for answers. I'm giving you answers. I was truthful. I loved Sydney. I still love Sydney. I _never_ moved on. Why do you think I'm here now? I came here for answers myself, not to put myself through more hell than I'm already in—"

She doesn't hear anything you say. She's caught up in her emotional whirlwind. "—or maybe make me feel sorry for you. You knew what happened, and you never came. You are the lowest of the low in my mind. I really hoped you were a better person than I thought you were. I gave you the benefit of the doubt. And it backfired on me just like all my other dreams. I guess I was wrong." She sniffles slightly as she rants. "I want you to leave."

You see a passion behind her eyes that you have seen before. You know that everything will end badly if you don't leave now. "Look, I didn't lie about my feelings for Sydney. I don't understand what you're telling me. I loved her, and I lost her. God, I loved her. And don't tell me otherwise. You have no idea what I lost." Your threat is thinly veiled, but you realize that your words have no impact on her as you search her eyes. They're still the same, scowling at you with invisible daggers. You notice that she has suddenly built up a wall around her heart so that her emotions won't be taken advantage of. It's a stubbornness you know well.

She's pointing at the door, and there are tears in her eyes, but she's not letting them fall out. You know that's because if they do, it would be considered letting the emotions completely overtake you, and you lose control. 'Never sacrifice your hold on your emotions,' is something you taught yourself after Sydney's death.

Seeing this young woman in front of you with her chest heaving, obviously distraught by your words, make you realize how taxing emotionally your conversation has been on her. You don't know why. You just need to head toward the door before something regrettable happens.

"Sweetie, are you alright in there?" you hear Jonathan's concerned voice echo as he crosses over the threshold from the kitchen to the living room with the toddler in his arms.

"Yeah, just fine. I'm just showing Mr. Vaughn the door."

Jonathan, seeing his wife upset, gives you a fierce look. You know that look well. It had been on your face a couple of times. "Mr. Vaughn, I suggest you hurry up and leave. I don't need you here upsetting my family."

You nod, understanding what just happened. What he just did strikes a chord in you—he acted just like you would have acted if Sydney was hurt. You recognize the love for his wife in his eyes and the overwhelming need to protect her any way he possibly could with every step he takes towards you.

You get up from the seat and open the door and leave. You have some answers, but you're confused as to what they mean; you've once again ended up with more questions than you'd have liked.

What did Catherine mean when she said you knew? Was she saying that you knew Sydney was alive? It would be impossible. You never knew, and if you had known, you would have found her straight away, just like you've been trying to find closure for the past twenty-three years. And the way Catherine spoke sounded like you had missed your second chance at happiness.

**--break--**

You get back in your car and drive. You have no destination, no specific route to follow. All you need to know is to continually exchange between the accelerator and the brake, and to turn the wheel in the same direction the car in front of you is going or to follow the dotted white lines. There are no thoughts to your actions except the word 'drive' running through your subconscious. To escape what—you're not sure yet.

The yellow light in your dashboard finally catches your attention, but you don't know where you are, nevertheless where a gas station is. The sun has moved quite a distance from when you first started driving and is now almost blinding you as you drive toward the west. You look around and find yourself on a suburban road with a park nearby. You pull yourself into a parking lot and look around.

You know where you are. You were here nearly twenty four years ago, back when the novelty of your relationship with Sydney had slightly worn off; you started "dating" only a month before. You were here for a one-day meeting at Langley and decided to look around before going back on another flight. You were playing with a jewelry box in your pocket as you leaned against a wooden fence. The velvet was smooth against your thumb as you snapped it open and shut. It wasn't a ring—you weren't ready for that yet. You both were waiting for SD-6 to fall. It was a simple necklace. Nothing too fancy. It just held great meaning. The pendant had been your great grandmother's. You were supposed to give it to the woman you loved, but you never got the chance. You never worked up enough courage to give it to her when you got back to LA; or actually, you were waiting for the perfect moment. It never came. It's now in your safety deposit box in the bank. You doubt anyone will get the chance to wear it now. It's been untouched for so long. You've considered giving it up to the sea, but you haven't worked up the nerve.

You're back to the beginning; the moment when you knew that Sydney was the one you would spend the rest of your life with. Your life had been short. The Michael Vaughn you used to be is gone.

You remember sitting down in an empty CIA conference room and listening to the recording of Sydney's last mission. Your memory of that night is etched so deeply in your mind that you remember every breath she took and how she uttered your name.

"_Boy Scout?" Sydney's hopeful voice booms from the speakers._

_You tense as you realize this is the last time you'll ever hear her voice. Sydney's recordings are always destroyed—the CIA never left hard copies of audio or visual evidence of the important cases because of security issues. Instead, after a video or audio recording is made and after debriefs are written, the cassettes are shattered then burnt. So you need to make this last. You make sure you catch onto every breath she takes and every hitch of her voice in her sentences._

"_Sorry, Mountaineer. Your lover boy is off taking a break in France with his mommy. He's a momma's boy. It's just you and me. Maybe we'll liven things up for this op, and you'll be coming to me instead of the scrawny boy," you hear your friend's voice. You try smiling as he jokes with Syd. You fail._

"_Hey, Weiss. You know I'll take you over a scrawny boy any day, but I just have to check with Vaughn. I'm sure he'll have a word to say in this matter; you know, office protocol and all. I just might get a lecture from him about proper conduct." You can hear her smiling, and you know the irony in that statement. Her voice shreds your insides apart even more. Just one more smile would have been all you wanted; one more chance to say 'I love you.'_

"_You keep telling yourself that. I know you'll come running to me one day."_

"_Sure I will, Weiss. And for the record, Vaughn's not scrawny."_ That shut him up and no doubt surprised him, _you think to yourself._

_You listen to her boots pad softly on the ground, making as little noise as possible. She lets out a long sigh—a trademark you've learned to recognize as her signal that she's preparing herself to slip into her alias. You have always viewed it as her letting go of herself and all her worries._

"_Okay, Weiss. I'm in the facility. I should check in with Dixon; going radio silent for a second." She flicks the button on her watch as she pretends to read the time._

_You wait the thirty seconds out, waiting to hear her voice again. You don't know when the guard injected her; Weiss hadn't told you. You hear her come back online and you expel your breath forcefully and fast._

"_So you need to take a left then a right after seeing the second hallway, then up the stairs that should be on your left."_

"_Weiss! I know where I'm going. We've gone over the plan more than a few times, and then another time when you insisted."_

"_Okay… okay. I'm just… nervous because if you get hurt, Mike's gonna kill me."_

"_Then tell me a story about Vaughn." She's trying to not be obvious, but you smile nonetheless. It's so like her to go hunt for more information about you, and Weiss would be a wise choice, you admit. _

"_Alright. Let me think. Back in college Mike was quite the partier." _

_You have a feeling you know which story he's going to tell, and it isn't one you would have Sydney know about if you had a choice._

"_This isn't going to be a let's-see-how-many-girls-he-could-lay-in-one-night story is it?"_

"_No. Mike would never do that. You know him. He's too serious about having a committed relationship sort of thing. I, on the other hand, never agreed. A bachelor's life is the best life has to offer. You get the girls, you get the parties, and you get the alcohol."_

"_Weiss, please. Spare me."_

"_You're the one who asked."_

_You picture her adorned in her black combat gear and her smile. _

"_Good point. Tell me something I don't know about Vaughn then." You hear the giddiness in her voice. You've come to recognize it every time she gets prepared to hear something about your life._

_There's a slight lull in the conversation, and you hear Sydney's combat boots lightly padding along the floor._

"_Okay, I got one. There was this one time in college when Mike was really drunk, like wasted-before-three-o'clock-in-the-afternoon sort of drunk. It was after an all-night party that bled into part of the afternoon, and he had been dared to chug upside down on the keg—you know, keg stands. We had a political inquiry class around four, and he couldn't even write out his own notes—"_

"_Oh, no, he did not. He hit on the professor didn't he?"_

_You groan in your head, but if you confess it to yourself, you're curious how much he told her about that day. You yourself don't remember much of what happened that day, only what Weiss chose to reveal to you._

"_Yeah. Except he was calling our professor 'Professor Watkins.' Professor Watkins is a woman; Professor Evans, who is our political inquiry professor, is male. It was very hard trying to explain to him why Mike was disrupting a class of 200 students and repeating everything Evans was saying, and why Mike was calling Evans 'cute.'"_

_You hear her giggle quietly. You would tell her every embarrassing moment you've had in your life if you could hear that giggle again._

"_Wow. He definitely was wa—"_

_Weiss is scrambling around. You pick up the soft but distinct beeping in the background. The happy moment is shattered._

"_Sydney—there're guards there. You need to get out." Weiss is trying to stress his authority over her, but Sydney isn't one to be pushed, you know. She's stubborn, and only in the past year has she begun to explicitly trust your directives; and even then, she doesn't always follow them._

"_I'm almost there. I can get to the vial before they're here. Just give me a few seconds."_

"_You don't have a few seconds. I'm ordering you to get out of there, Sydney. Mike is going to tear into me if he finds out that you got hurt under my watch." Weiss is panicking, and that only serves to tell you how bad the situation really is. _

"_I got it, Weiss. I got it. I'm looking for a way out now."_

_Now that she's retrieved the vial, you hear her calm voice underlining with panic when she begins to comprehend that she doesn't know where the escape routes are. This only makes you tense up more as you recognize that the end is near. This is too much like a previous mission from her beginnings as a double agent; the case that got you replaced by Lambert. You begin to wonder if she realizes that this is when her world is about to stop. If only you had been there. You keep trying to rationalize it. If only you'd been there, you would have been able to somehow get her out. Maybe through the heater system, or through another door, or just by staying hidden somewhere. You know these are worthless "what ifs" because the CIA had already checked out all these possibilities._

"_Sydney! I'm looking up the escape routes. Damn it. Vaughn is going to kill me."_

"_He's not going to kill you. Just get me out of there. They're almost here. I've tried all the doors. The rest are locked; the only one open is the one they're about to come through." The words are coming faster and faster out of her mouth. Or maybe it's just your blood stream that's filled with adrenaline that's making it seem that way._

"_I'm guessing that by getting into the room, a silent alarm was triggered. It just didn't show up on our schematics. And because the alarm was triggered, the facility is going into lockdown. You and Vaughn have gotten out of so many similar situations. I can do this. I can get you out. But crap, Syd… we don't have any information about this. Connect to Dixon, maybe he'll find a way."_

"_I think it's too late for that," she responds almost defeated. Almost._

_You hear a gun shot and your heart beats even faster as dread overcomes your body. Then you hear Syd and several guards fight—a kick connecting to an abdomen or a punch connecting with a face or a man being tripped after a well placed strike to the head. Another gun shot and you hear silence before you hear a man is speaking in a language you don't understand. _

_Only then do you know for certain that this is the end, and apparently Syd does, too._

_Her whispers carry so much regret. You wonder if she had a gun pointed at her head as she says, "Weiss? Tell Vaughn…" _

_And then static. No one at the CIA was sure why it turned to static all of a sudden, and they made sure they told you so before you came into this room._

_So her last word was your name, or so you hope. You wonder what she wanted to tell you; what profound phrase she was about to reveal as her life was taken away from her. You want to know; your body has been left hanging at a state of limbo. You don't know what she was going to say. 'I'm sorry,' 'I love you,' but all of them seem so trivial. You just want her to be there, safe and nestled in your arms._

"The first thing you need to know is that we did everything that we could. Many people looked over Agent Weiss' counter-mission. We thought we had fooled proofed it," _you hear words of the early morning meeting run through your head one more time. Of course it had been fool-poof. Weiss called you so many times before sending her out asking you if it was okay. You fashioned some of it yourself. But none of you had the plans for the extra security system; obviously SD-6 didn't either. You should have counted on Sydney's stubbornness, but you're not going to fault her. You should have remembered that she had a tendency to be stubborn when it came to completing a mission. _

_You hear the tape click, signaling the end. You realize that only twenty minutes have gone by and you are now expected to meet up with Kendall and Jack. You don't want to. Instead, you walk over to the other side of the room and press play again. You have this masochist feeling coursing through your veins right now. You need to hear her one more time. She's not going to be here for now on; that realization has hit you harder than you can ever imagine. It had always been a possibility, but you both had considered yourselves lucky. It was the feeling that she was invincible that allowed you to keep sending her into the field._

_Just one more time is all you need. And then you'll give her up. This time, however, you let the tears flow as the world you thought you had figured out falls through._

Your emotions and thoughts are clouded with disappointment, frustration, and anger. The tranquility of this park is not the best place for you right now, but you know if you went somewhere busy, you would only lash out at someone. You breathe in and hold the air in your lungs until they start to burn. You lean against the fence for comfort. You still haven't learned to stop thinking about her, and the meeting earlier isn't helping. It's boggling your mind that she might have been here.

You don't know what to believe anymore. The pictures looked so real, and your heart is telling you that you've found her again, but your head is still hammering the doubt into your soul.

You wonder why she never tried to contact you. Yes, she was in WPP, but still, she's Sydney; she would have found a way. But you find yourself doubting your own heart. You hope that she did try to contact you simply because you think that she had to be as in love with you as you were her. And from the love that Catherine described to you, it sounds like Sydney did love you back. You just don't know how long she waited. You are a disappointment to her because you didn't find her; you're a failure to yourself for not trusting her.

Your mind jumps to another thought that has been nagging you since you left the house. She has a daughter. When you looked at the picture, you realized how similar they look—you just never questioned it past the fact that Sydney has a daughter. You already know Kate is a strong woman without ever meeting her, and you hope she isn't trapped in the world of espionage like her grandparents and mother.

You wonder who her father is. The way Catherine described her…

The autopsy revealed that the body was pregnant at the time of death.

You feel hope invade your body. It might be an inappropriate hope since you don't even know if what you're dreaming of is true, but you feel it nonetheless, and it just might hurt you in the end. It might have been a complete fluke that the body was pregnant, or it could have been your first clue. But if it was a clue, then your child should be around the same age as Kate. And if Sydney found out she was pregnant, that would have been a reason to be extracted. You just need to know why she didn't tell you that she was leaving and why she left you behind.

**--break--**

You knock on Catherine's door and hope you aren't interrupting the toddler's afternoon nap. You had stayed around a little bit longer next to the fence and stared at the squirrels chasing each other up and down the trees before acting on your emotions and your irksome desire to find out what happened to Sydney. You decided to come back to Catherine's house and ignored the fact that you might get thrown in jail for harassment. You have questions, and she has the answers. You're determined to figure this out before you leave again.

You hear Catherine's heels click on the floor, but she's still talking to Jonathan as she opens the door. You notice that her hair is darker than earlier—the highlights have been washed out. When she does turn to face you, her eyes are green, not the gray eyes she had before.

"Oh, shit."

You guess she never expected you to return.

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**Antigone11:** Not a lot of people like Catherine. You'll understand her point of view very soon. She has a reason for her actions. And at this point, she is supposed to be manipulative. Very manipulative. She's trying to get her own answers. Thanks for reading.

**Valley-girl2:** LOL. I don't even want to know what happened to Barnett. She's supposed to be at the task force still. We're in APO. I guess she never was given clearance. All the better I say—we don't have to hear her psychoanalyze them and have her report stuff back to the CIA. / Bombarding questions… that is so me, too. I have a great time doing it. It throws people off and makes their head spin, but then I get the answers I need. / Klepto? Umm… is that English::blushes: I don't know what that means. / Yeah, school is madness. But no, I don't end until June. Darn the UCs—they move fast and end late. / Thanks for reading. :)

**Acetoorion:** I hope you got my e-mail, because, seriously? You rock. Thank you for going through all those fics. It meant the world to me. Thanks for reading and reviewing each and every one of them.

**PKgirl:** Hehe. You'll figure it out soon enough. Not everything is as they appear… as I think you have already read. Yes, Jack knows everything… but does he share his knowledge is the question. Thanks for reading.

**genevra:** The train station scene in season 1 is right before Syd and Vaughn go to Taipei. She remarks about "normal people going to normal jobs." One of the major S/V scenes in season one. ;) / You haven't seen season 4? Oops. But no, they were very, very, very, very minor spoilers. They had no important context in the season. / Hey, look! It didn't take 40 days again… I don't think. Actually… it might have. Let me count… Yeah… actually, today is day 40. Sigh. I'll try to get better at it. / No one is supposed to like Catherine at this point. But hopefully, she'll grow on you. Thanks for reading.

**Figoana:** Thanks for reading. :)

**AtruthLtakesItimeASVS: **Oops. I'll _try_ updating earlier and quicker… but I'm lazy. Sorry. It's my character flaw. Procrastination and laziness don't make good partners. Thanks for reading.

THANK YOU TO: **faith angelli, Queen Qwenyvere, Leira Noxid, matthewperrysgirl, antz, sydofthesea, maggieann452, alllieee, valley-girl2, Ruby015, HandlesVartan, oOspuffy4everOo, Fair Cate, Aquarius4, sunshine231, PKgirl, livingArtemis, Princess Box, **and **lec** for putting me on your author alert list. I means so much to me.


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